


Change of State

by Blackbird Song (Blackbird_Song)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: K/S Advent Calendar, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackbird_Song/pseuds/Blackbird%20Song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock's heart stopped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change of State

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://ksadvent.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://ksadvent.livejournal.com/)**ksadvent** challenge of 2013. Not either of the prompts I'd planned to write, but something that came to me at the last possible second in a flood of extra RL work.
> 
> Many thanks to my husband for the beta.

It's been six days since Spock died. Of course, Bones would tell him that Spock hadn't really died, at all. Spock's heart had stopped. That happened, especially when being pummeled into the ground by twenty-seven genetically engineered soldiers hopped up on the latest mind-altering substance that lowered whatever trace of inhibition might have been present. It's Christmas tomorrow.

Jim hates Christmas.

Spock's heart stopped.

They were beamed up as Jim thought they'd lost him, but he opened his eyes and asked, "Jim?" And then his heart stopped on the transporter platform. And there was a tear rolling down his cheek when it happened.

It's been six days, and Spock isn't dead anymore, but he isn't with them, either. He's in some sort of a healing trance, Bones says. Older Spock confirmed it, and was characteristically cryptic on what Spock's chances were, and unforthcoming about whether or not this had happened in his own universe.

Six days of worrying whether or not Spock will recover from this. At this point, Jim thinks that if Spock opens his eyes, even if he can never again add two and two correctly in base 10, he, Jim, will be happy.

Except that he knows how much Spock loves having a good, functional brain.

Jim wants Spock to twit him about his unshaven appearance and his superstitious belief that if he stays constantly in Sickbay by Spock's side, everything will be okay. He also wants to roll back time and kiss away that tear – better yet, roll it back further and stop that stupid fight that set Spock up as a target for those idiots in the first place.

Six days to realize that all that fighting was a smokescreen. Back when he, Jim, had actually died, Spock hadn't even been allowed the smoke and mirrors of hope given those who drift in and out of Sickbay to tell Spock what he meant to them. They speak words of encouragement that most of them think he can hear and maybe carry with him to the new Katric Ark on New Vulcan, if he can't come back. Bones and Sarek can't be sure that he will.

Uhura comes by every day. She and Spock had broken up not long before the incident, which made Jim terribly sad. He could see how it ripped her apart – and Spock, too. He'd have taken either or both of them to bed in a heartbeat, right from the beginning, but now....

Six long, stupid days of watching Spock in a coma after his heart stopped, because a Vulcan heart stopping is not a trivial thing, not as it has become in humans. That's what it's taken for him to realize that he _loves_ Spock. Really, flat-out loves him. So much so, that all he wants for Christmas is his friend back, alive, as intact as he can be and available for chess, snark, arguments, logic and the kind of love that lets a Vulcan cry when he sees his best friend dying.

It's also taken him six days to reach out, as he does now, and take Spock's hand between his own. "Please come back to me, Spock."

On the seventh day, Jim has shaved, cleaned up and returned to the bridge. He is tired, grieving and fed up, and he's going to suck it up and do his job, no matter what. And he's not going to tell anyone – not even Bones, though he saw everything – that in the last hour of the six days of personal leave that he'd taken, he kissed Spock's forehead for the first and probably last time.

They're mapping stars, so it doesn't take much of an excuse for Jim to leave Sulu with the con and bolt for Sickbay when Uhura tells him to. He expects to find Spock dead or on his way out. He expects Bones' sober face and nurses who suddenly find themselves too busy to look at a man grieving for his friend. He expects Scotty and Keenser to be biting back tears in the manliest of ways and then fighting over it.

He doesn't expect to see Spock awake and cognizant. He doesn't expect the flash of recognition and seriousness when their eyes meet. He certainly doesn't expect Spock to reach for his hand, let alone to yank him closer, and the last thing in the universe he expects is for Spock to pull him into as passionate an open-mouthed kiss as anyone who's just awakened from a coma/trance/near-death experience after seven days could possibly manage.

When Bones tells them that Spock can get out of Sickbay as long as someone stays with him and makes sure he doesn't work, Jim volunteers, even though sex is prohibited for another day. In return, Bones invalids him off duty on the basis of sleep deprivation and orders him to see a shrink.

As he walks out of Sickbay with his arm looped over Spock's shoulders, Jim Kirk realizes that he kind of loves Christmas.


End file.
